A video went viral after a white woman made a huge scene outside of a New York deli, saying a young boy grabbed her from behind. After the incident became racially charged, security footage revealed the truth about what really happened.
USA TODAY

A video shot by Jason Littlejohn on Wednesday in Brooklyn shows a woman claiming to call 911. The woman speaks on the phone, saying that a young boy, who is black, groped her in a deli. She later apologized after security footage revealed that the child accidentally brushed her in the store.(Photo: Courtesy Jason Littlejohn)

A woman, saying she was groped by a young boy at a Brooklyn, New York deli, appeared to call 911 in a racially-charged viral video captured Wednesday evening. The woman later apologized after being confronted with security footage showing the boy had accidentally grazed her.

The video shows young children crying as the woman talks into the cellphone: "I was just sexually assaulted by a child," she said on the video captured by Jason Littlejohn, who lives nearby the market.

Although the woman — identified by PIX 11 as Teresa Klein — claims to be on the phone with 911, no police immediately respond to the call. In the video and in a subsequent interview with the station, she alleges the mother of the children escalated the situation. Klein said the boy grabbed her buttocks.

Many, including Klein herself, have noted the appearance of racial profiling: "White lady calling ... the cops on a black lady, I get it," she says to an increasingly hostile crowd gathered around her as she talks on the phone, purportedly to a 911 operator.

On Friday, Klein was confronted by her neighbors and the media in the deli. She watched surveillance video of the incident as a jeering crowd gathered.

Asked what she saw on the video, Klein responded: "The child accidentally (brushed me) ... Young man, I don't know your name, but I'm sorry."

Littlejohn, who captured the video, said he's haunted by the memory of the crying child: “I was really disgusted by the situation,” he told USA TODAY on Friday. He said the boy was crying genuine tears of hurt and fear, and Klein "just didn’t care."

Klein, not the mother, escalated the situaiton Littlejohn said. While both women yelled, he said the mother acted in defense of her child.